Scandal at Penn State: Say it ain't so, Joe (Julie Mack blog)

Associated Press Jerry Sandusky, center, is placed in a police car Friday after he was charged with sexually abusing eight young men.

And we thought the situation at Ohio State was bad.

College football has more than its share of controversy, from free tattoos in exchange for sports memorabilia to illegal practice sessions to Cam Newton's father demanding cash on the barrel for his son's talents.

But the situation unfolding at Penn State is in a whole different category.

The victims, incidentally, were all participants in The Second Mile, a charitable organization started by Sandusky for at-risk children.

Also indicted were two top-ranking Penn State officials -- Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, vice president for finance and operations -- for perjury and failure to report under Pennsylvania's child protective services law.

Understand that even beyond the involvement of Penn State, this is a highly unusual sex-abuse case. Typically, these situations tend to dissolve into a he-said-he-said round of accusations and denials, where the truth is not only murky but frustratingly unprovable either way.

Let's acknowledge upfront that Sandusky is innocent until proven guilty, and the same is true of Curley and Schultz.

That said, the accusations here involve not one, but two eyewitness accounts of actual abuse in the Penn State locker-room showers, one in 2000 and the other in 2002, as well as a semi-confession from Sandusky in 1998 involving yet another incident in the Penn State showers.

Think about that.

It turns out that the university investigated Sandusky in 1998 -- let me stress that, THIRTEEN YEARS AGO -- for two incidents in which he was apparently showering with middle-school-age boys and "washing their bodies."

During that investigation, authorities monitored a phone call that the boy's mother made to Sandusky about the incident.

At the end of the conversation, Sandusky said: "I understand I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won't get it from you. I wish I was dead."

So you be the judge. The words of a man wrongly accused? Or major red flag?

Still, authorities decided it was unclear whether the
incidents rose to the level of sex abuse and closed that case without
taking action.

Sandusky retired in 1999, although he continued to have unrestricted access of Penn State athletic facilities, including keys to the locker rooms.

So in 2000, a year after his retirement, a Penn State janitor allegedly found Sandusky in a locker-room shower giving having sex with a middle-school-age boy. The distraught janitor told his supervisor and a co-worker. At that time, they agreed to keep it quiet for fear of losing their jobs.

Two years after that, the grand jury report says, a graduate assistant allegedly found Sandusky in the locker-room shower having sex with a 10-year-old boy.

Let me reframe that.

It appears that for a second time in two years, a university employee witnessed a rape. Of a child. By the same retired coach. In a Penn State facility.

Consider that authorities still don't know the identify of those two alleged rape victims and for another half-dozen or so years after those incidents occurred, it appears Sandusky continued to court young boys.

In fact, in 2007 and 2008, Sandusky was bringing yet another middle-school-age boy to Penn State, including to preseason practices.

Did anyone at the university raise an eyebrow about Jerry Sandusky and his new best friend? Did anybody figure enough was enough?

Well, no.

After several years of being abused by Sandusky, according to the grand jury report, the boy told his mother. She called officials at the boy's school, and they called police. It was that chain of events that launched a three-year investigation culminating in last week's indictments.

If the grand jury report is true, than it's clear that Jerry Sandusky is a very troubled man who preyed on children in an unspeakable way.

But regardless of Sandusky's guilt or innocence, the actions of Penn State officials are unfathomable.

It's unfathomable that university officials were willing to drop the matter in 1998, without taking any action.

It's unfathomable that in 2000, university custodians figured their bosses would value Jerry Sandusky's good name over the welfare of a child.

It's unfathomable that a university employee says he reported the rape of a 10-year-old and nothing happened.

And unfathomable that university officials would continue to see the alleged perp with other young boys and do nothing. Nothing.

"The failure of top university officials to
act on reports of Sandusky's alleged sexual misconduct, even after it
was reported to them in graphic detail by an eyewitness, allowed a
predator to walk free for years - continuing to target new victims,"
Kelly said. "Equally disturbing is the lack of action and apparent lack
of concern among those same officials, and others who received
information about this case, who either avoided asking difficult
questions or chose to look the other way."

At this point, it appears Penn State is too busy declaring its innocence to express much remorse.

An attorney for Schultz say even if the grand jury report is true, his client didn't have a responsibility to report the 2002 incident because it wasn't a Penn State kid.

Really? Really?

Like many other universities, football is close to being a religion at Penn State, and on that campus, Joe Paterno ranks right up there with God. I get that.

I also get that Paterno and Penn State take tremendous pride their squeaky clean image, and that image would have taken a serious blow if they had outed Sandusky. The retired coach put Penn State is a very, very difficult situation.

But make no mistake, this isn't like other football scandals where the main issues at stake are honor and integrity and playing by the rules.

This isn't about NCAA "irregularities."

It's about serial sex abuse against vulnerable children. It's about abuse that allegedly was allowed to continue for years and years and years.

It's about right and wrong, in the most fundamental sense.

I thought I was beyond surprise in terms of the sacred-cow nature of college football.